Company - Momentus Space
Product/Service - Vigoride
- Classification
- In-Space Transportation
- Category
- Space Tug
In-Space Logistics
- Fields
- In-Space Transportation
Transport Service (In-Space)
Transport Service (LEO-GEO)
- Status
- Active
- First launch
- 2022
Publications and news:
- Breaking the Rocket Equation: How Refuellable Spacecraft Change the Dynamics of Space Transportation. SmallSat 2022.
- Reuseable Orbital Transfer Vehicles: Why it is the Future for LEO, Cislunar Space and Beyond. SmallSat 2022.
- Momentus and Axient to Collaborate on Space Services from Low-Earth Orbit to Cislunar Space. The two companies will work together to propose and develop capabilities to address a wide variety of space activities such as, but not limited to, launch services, space communication, space domain awareness, precision navigation and timing, and related technologies to utilize in, from, or through the Low-Earth Orbit, Geostationary Transfer Orbit, Geostationary Orbit, and Cislunar domains.
- Vigoride 6 launch and the 1st TApe Spring Solar Array (TASSA) on orbit! These new solar arrays have the potential to truly revolutionize the way power is generated in space by reducing the cost by orders of magnitude.
- The company announced Aug. 2 that it was now offering customers a bus called the M-1000. The bus is similar to the Vigoride orbital transfer vehicle that Momentus has flown three times so far, but without the water-based propulsion system it uses for changing orbits.
- The bus emerged from limitations flying hosted payloads on Vigoride, which remain attached to the tug rather than deployed as satellites.
- “What we’re finding is that a lot of government customers don’t really want to borrow the bus and lease it, but instead they want to own it,” he said. “Also, in some cases, because of the sensitivity of the payloads they don’t want to share it with other users.”
- Momentus continues to offer Vigoride tugs. The next tug, Vigoride-7, is scheduled to launch on the SpaceX Transporter-10 rideshare mission in early 2024. The vehicle was scheduled to launch on Transporter-9 in October, but the company pushed the mission back so it can fly with “a fuller load of payloads for deployment in LEO with better mission economics,” the company said in a July 28 statement.
Status Comment / Notes
Sources
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News, Research, Projects and Patents
Title | Type | Date | Summary |
---|---|---|---|
Momentus’ Rood discusses technology trends | Article | 2023-06-22 | |
Momentus looks ahead under new chief executive | Article | 2021-08-04 | |
Momentus August 2021 Investor Deck | Presentation | 2021-08-01 | |
Space SPAC shares drop as struggling merger target Momentus does not expect to fly this year | News | 2021-05-24 | |
MADE IN SPACE EUROPE AND MOMENTUS TO DEMONSTRATE ROBOTIC ORBITAL TRANSPORTATION SERVICES | News | 2020-09-01 | > To develop a cooperative robotic spaceflight mission planned for 2022. The agreement covers mission development and validation efforts of the combined capabilities of Momentus’ Vigoride transfer vehicle and MIS EU robotic arms. A successful demonstration mission would provide flight heritage for key space commercialisation technologies. |
The New ‘Gold Rush in Space’ | News | 2020-08-07 |